I Know Where This Is Going
by smileypv
Summary: What about your life is true when you know your fate?
1. Prediction

_What do you do when you already know where your life is going? _

_How do you live your life when you know how it's going to end?_

* * *

When I was nine, I was outside at the park, playing with my friends. My mom, Renee, was sitting on a bench with other moms, chatting. My friends Rosalie and Alice were both challenging each other to go higher on the swings while I stood nearby, out of the way and waiting for them to stop with the egos already. As a preternaturally clumsy person, I never got on the swings. Sure, I would tempt fate by attempting to have fun, but after getting two of my fingers lodged in the chains, falling over backward while on an upward trajectory, and, lastly, knocking over two different toddlers just trying to get started, I gave up on the whole thing and chose the safer route of standing by while others played. I felt fated to be clumsy my whole life. At nine, that was saying a lot.

Standing there, watching my friends play, was something I had done nearly daily, but today was different. Nothing else was different; everything about the day – from school to walking home to my mother gossiping nearby – was the same as ever. Except the dark-haired woman standing under the trees. She was beautiful but sad-looking, her dark hair curled around her face. Her brow was furrowed and I could see her brows pull together as she thought of something that must be troubling her. As she watched us play, I saw her move from the trees to a bench. She was on the curved part of the path that went from the main play area to the restrooms. I felt this pull toward her, this need to speak to her. I couldn't explain it; I just needed to do it.

"Hey, Alice, come with me to the restroom," I said, as she and Rosalie were starting to slow down their incessant swinging. I wondered who had won. Rosalie wrinkled her nose.

"I wouldn't go in there. It's so dirty. Public restrooms are gross."

Alice just smiled brightly. "Okay, Bella." She and I walked toward the cinderblock building which housed two restrooms and a water fountain. I waved at my mother, pointing toward the building, and Renee waved back, her eyes cutting toward us as we walked. I hoped my mother would get distracted by her conversations again so I could speak to the strange woman.

Alice went first and I quickly backtracked to stand by the dark-haired stranger. She looked at me and again I saw her brow furrow and her eyes look concerned. "I know your life."

"What?" I gasped. I was incredulous. Even at nine, I only had vague ideas about my life, but they were mostly about wanting to learn to drive so I could go to the library anytime I wanted or thinking about what career would allow me to spend all of my time with books. Thank goodness Alice was taking too long.

The woman stood quickly, grabbed my arms, and stared into my eyes. I looked over and saw my mother had turned away from me for a second so I stared back into the dark woman's eyes. "You will marry Edward and you will die in flames."

_"What?" _ I asked again, my eyes big and brown in her eyes. I hear Alice close the door to the restroom behind me and the woman instantly releases me.

"Bella?" Alice asks and I turn around to see her wide-eyed behind me. "Is everything OK?"

I turn again, to say something to the woman, but she has vanished. I look at Alice, then at my mother, who is still engrossed in her conversation, and then back to the bench where the woman has been sitting. The world seemed to have noticed nothing, only Alice, who stood waiting for my answer.

"Everything is fine, Alice. Let's go find Rosalie."


	2. Dreamer

That's when the dreams began. Dreams about flames at first. I became afraid of fire, which drove my mother crazy. Whenever my dad would answer a call that would involve fire, I would freak out, even though I was not involved, just my dad. I would check our smoke alarms religiously and even set them off a couple of times testing them. Two things happened then: first, I realized that I hadn't met or married anyone because I was a kid and, second, my mother threatened to send me to a shrink. How was I going to explain the encounter in the park to anyone?

After I calmed down, I found my school yearbook on the bookshelf in our living room and began to flip through it. There were no boys named Edward in our school, though there was a boy named Emmett in Rosalie's grade. I then flipped through Alice's yearbook when I was at her house next and, nope, no Edward.

As my tenth birthday approached in September, I began to think I was just plain crazy. How did I know that the woman on the playground wasn't just talking jibberish? How did I know she wasn't mentally ill or something? Two weeks after my birthday, our neighbor's house caught fire, the sirens of the fire trucks waking us in the night. The dreams of flames changed to our house being on fire, embers raining down on me as I found myself trapped, no way out. This continued for a couple of years; I got used to the dreams and didn't speak of them to my parents. Renee already seemed to be watching me out of the corner of her eye as it was.

When I was twelve, I started middle school, my elementary school merging with two others to create a much larger student population than I was used to. It was chaotic trying to get from one class to the other. It took me a long time to get to know any of the kids from the other schools that were now part of my daily school experience. The first two girls I met were Jessica and Angela.

We were sitting at lunch, Jessica and Angela on one side and Alice and Rosalie on the other. Rosalie was a year ahead of us, already in eighth grade. I watched Jessica stare at Rosalie with open envy as Rose flipped her blonde hair and had note after note slipped to her from boys in in the school. She ignored most of them, though she did seem to have a thing for Emmett, who was already taller than most of the school at just thirteen.

Nearby, I noticed a boy with messy hair and a slightly awkward gait. He put his hair up with his hand or ran through it with his fingers, thus causing this odd, frizzy configuration on his head. He was bone-thin and gawky, looking uncomfortable in his body. He seemed to flit around like a mosquito, never really looking any of the girls in the face and jabbering quietly with a couple of the boys at his table.

"Who is that?" I jutted my chin toward the boy; the girls all turned toward him. Alice and Rosalie shrugged, but Jessica and Angela both giggled.

"That guy?" Jessica rolled her eyes. "He's such a dork. His name is Edward."

Well, shit.


	3. Awkward

At this age, I took adults pretty seriously. Of course, I had the occasional rolling-my-eyes-at-my-parents moments when Renee would say something crazy or my father would give me a gruff admonishment about boys. But, when adults said something, it was gospel – for now. The dark woman's statements to me on the playground created my dreams and, soon after, sent me in the direction of a brooding, awkward Edward Cullen.

After my first sighting of him in the school cafeteria, I debated about what to do. Was this the Edward the dark woman had meant? Surely not. I had begun to picture someone akin to Edward Ferrars from _Sense and Sensibility_, someone handsome, perhaps not conventionally so, but smart, charmingly shy, and, above all, _not this guy_. This Edward was a mess. At twelve, that's saying a lot. His hair had been pushed up into some sort of bouffant in the front, likely by the alternating ways he ran his fingers through his hair throughout the day. He wore dark pants and dark shirts every day, always with some sort of logos on them. I finally figured out that some of the logos were symbols for certain bands so I looked up the bands online. I tried listening to the music, anything to find a starting place with this guy. He didn't exactly strike me as a talkative person. It took me a long time to muster up anything close to the right amount of courage to talk to this guy.

Finally, I saw my best opportunity would be between classes. His locker happened to be near Alice's so I started speeding through my between-class routine, gathering my books and notebooks faster, stacking everything together and in the right order before school started and then grabbing what I needed as quickly as I could. I then would scurry over to Alice's locker to chat with her for a moment before we both headed off to our next class, which we happened to have together. On this particular day, I warned her ahead of time what I was going to do.

In the lunchroom, I again had my eyes fixed on his back, watching Edward slump over a notebook, deep in conversation with another kid next time, this one with curly blonde hair. They seemed oblivious to the people around them. I nudged Alice and gestured toward the two of them.

"I'm going to talk to Edward before Algebra," I said.

"Why?" she whispered exasperated. "He's so, just, _ew._"

"What about the blonde kid next to him? I've seen you eying him before."

She smiled dreamily. "That's Jasper. He's adorbs. He plays guitar."

"So if I talk to Edward, then maybe I can get an in for you with Jasper."

Alice eyed me suspiciously. "Why do you want to talk to Edward Cullen? There isn't anything the least bit attractive about him. I mean, he barely looks anyone in the eye."

Since I can't tell anyone about the dark woman, I knew I needed to lie to avoid any of my friends becoming suspicious. Alice was right; what twelve-year-old girl would want to talk to this kid when she could eye boy-candy like Emmett, who I spied Rosalie flirting with a couple of tables over. But my life had been taken over by what I've been told about my future and I want to figure it out so I can get some peace of mind. "My mom always says to be nice to the kids who are a little odd now. They might turn out to surprise you. Become some hotshot actor or run a company one day."

Alice looks doubtful at that reasoning. We are entrenched in the age where any slight difference can be a death knell for your social life. "All right. I'll wait for you while you talk to him. Don't make me late for class, though."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Why would I do that? If you're late, I'm late too. And you know we'll catch hell for that."

Right then, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Jasper and Edward Cullen have turned toward us, Jasper smiling, Edward not. He looked me up and down and then turned away while Jasper remained smiling; I heard Alice sigh a little and I could only assume that I was in the middle of some sort of exchange between the two of them. I saw Edward nudge Jasper and the two returned to ignoring the people around them. Before we left the lunchroom, though, I saw Edward look my way one more time, his expression neutral.

* * *

_When I was nine, a dark-haired stranger told me I was going to marry Edward and die in flames. Your name is Edward. What do you think?_

_Um, nice shirt. I love that band._

_Soooo, how's it hanging, Cullen? What are you and Jasper up to?_

_Got a cigarette?_

I was twelve. Opening lines weren't my strong suit. This was not a conversation I had ever anticipated having with anyone. The closer it got to the moment, the brighter red I felt. I was shaking all over. My eyes flitted from face to face, trying to see what people's reactions to Edward Cullen were. Mostly, others just ignored him. I couldn't. It was annoying to be different.

My brain kept going, _What if you're wrong, what if you're wrong? You're only twelve. How do you KNOW?_ But I couldn't ignore anyone named Edward at this point. Just like I couldn't ignore fire any time I was near it. I couldn't forget the dark woman's words.

_I know your life_.

Finally, it was time for Algebra. I threw my books from my previous class into my locker and yanked the textbook and notebook I needed from the pile in my locker. I saw Alice standing by her locker, staring at me, motioning toward Edward, who was perched below her, taking things out of his own locker. She gracefully moved around him, toward the staircase that would take us to Algebra, and I walked as slowly as I could manage, which probably looked more like a clumsy ambling; I saw Alice's expression as I made my way toward him, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling more than once. I stopped in front of his locker door for a few seconds before I could make my voice work.

"Hi." It came out as nearly a whisper. He didn't look up so I tried again, working to inject some projection into my voice. "Hi, uh, Edward."

He looked up this time, regarding me neutrally. He pushed his hand into his hair, the front section jutting up in multiple directions. His eyes looked at me suspiciously, but his face remained impassive, like any second he would see right through me.

He answered with his own 'hi' and then did nothing to continue the conversation. He stood waiting for me to say something next. I felt my eyes grow wide and I fumbled for something else to say.

"I like your shirt. Those guys are my new favorite band." I said lamely, gesturing at the button-down shirt he wore with the logo of a prog rock band on its back.

"Thanks. I need to go to class now." His textbook slid from his grip, exposing the binder underneath. I noticed a drawing tucked into the clear-sleeve front of the binder, but he yanked it out of my sight before I could tell what the drawing was. We both reached for the book at the same time, nearly knocking heads in the process. He got to the book first and looked at me like he was going to say something. Instead, I heard him huff through his nose and watched him walk quickly away. I stood slack-jawed and feeling dumb.

"Super, Swan. Just super." I mumbled to myself as I joined Alice, both of us taking the stairs two at a time so we could avoid being late. We slid into our seats just as the bell rang, signaling the start of class.

I tried to listen to today's lesson, but I replayed the encounter with Edward instead. I was trying to figure out where I went wrong, what I should have said to him that would have gotten him talking more. I didn't know what I could have done differently, but I figured it had to be my fault since he didn't seem terribly interested in talking to me in the first place.

_Sigh._

Figuring all of this out was going to be harder than I thought it would be.


	4. Sketches

Over the next few weeks, I made a few half-hearted attempts to talk to Edward Cullen. He always looked at me with the same expression – patient, neutral, never taking his eyes off of me, but never giving me much in return. It was like he was observing me rather than me observing him. I caught him watching me off and on, usually when we were changing classes or when we were sitting at lunch. Jasper and Alice started to 'date' – if that was what you could call it when you're this age – so we found ourselves shifted down a few seats to accommodate Jasper and his group, which included Edward. Edward always sat on the end and he almost always talked only to Jasper, though he would talk to Alice occasionally. He never spoke to me and certainly not to the rest of the table – Angela, Jessica, Rosalie, and, now, Emmett.

So while I was watching him, he was watching me, and where was this going? Absolutely nowhere. He wouldn't speak to me. It was really frustrating.

One day, right toward the end of fall semester, Alice bounced up to me in her usual way, but this time she was squealing louder with each bounce. I had to laugh. "What is it, Alice?"

"OMG, Bella, OMG! I just saw something that I never expected to see. You know how Edward has all of these drawings on his binder?"

"Yeah, I've never seen them, though. I've seen him sketching before, usually during study hall, but he doesn't seem willing to share them with anyone."

"Well, Jasper has one in his locker. It's a sketch of Jasper holding his guitar and looks amazing, by the way. I asked him about Edward's sketches and he said that he's seen tons."

"So?"

"He also told me that Edward has at least two sketches of you!"

_Excuse me? The soundless enigma that is Edward Cullen has sketches of me. Creepy._

"Isn't that a little creepy? I mean, he never talks to me. I have tried talking to him on more than one occasion and nothing. He barely speaks to anyone except you and Jasper."

Alice waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, please, Bella. It's just an act. He's shy, that's all. He comes off as this aloof guy, but really he's just painfully shy."

"So shy that he can't speak to me when I speak to him?"

Alice shrugged. "Anyway. He has sketches of you! Isn't that amazing? I think he likes you."

"Great. The one guy in this school who likes me is a selective mute on par with that guy from _The Big Bang Theory_."

Alice put her hand on my shoulder and tried to look sympathetic. "Hey, you're the one who said that we should be nice to the geeky ones because they might turn out to be fabulously wealthy someday."

I rolled my eyes. "Let's go to class, Alice."

As we walked to our next class, I couldn't help being a little excited about the sketches. That's something, right? Of course, I can't let him know that I know because he would be mortified. Really, this information gets me nowhere. If only I could get a good look at them…

* * *

The morning of our last day before Winter Break, I saw Edward outside of school, joking around with Jasper and a couple of other guys, including, surprisingly, Emmett. I don't think I had ever seen him smile before, but he was definitely smiling today. In fact, he was having so much fun that he left his books on the steps going up to the school's entrance. I saw this and grabbed them as soon as he was out of sight. I knew this was going to make me late to my first class, but I didn't care. I had a shot to see what he had drawn of me. I realized right as I ducked inside a restroom that his binder might not have the drawings, that, if they did exist, he might have secreted them away somewhere. How did I know that Alice actually saw me in those sketches and not some other girl? My friend was known to exaggerate at times.

The drawing on the front of the binder was a guitar; I had no idea what kind it was other than it was electric. Inside, he had sketches for each of his subject dividers. The subjects of the drawings varied, but each was exquisitely detailed when needed or minimalist when it suited him. When I flipped to the last class, I gasped audibly and I peeked around the corner to see if anyone had heard me.

Alice and I had algebra as our last class of the day. Every time I tried to talk to Edward, it had been right at that time. Other than that, we moved in different circles; the seventh grade class was large enough that we all couldn't be in the same classes at the same time. My locker was down the hall from Alice's, far away enough that I had to make an effort to talk to her or Edward before that class. Edward's behavior each time made me think my advances were unwanted, that he couldn't wait to get away from me.

I was wrong. The sketch that made up the divider for his final class was one of me. At first, I had denied Alice's assumption that the sketches he had done were of me at all. Perhaps it was some other dark-haired girl. I mean, if you looked around, it wasn't like I stood out at all. But this was most definitely me. I could tell by the mouth, the slight unevenness around the upper lip, the fullness of the bottom lip. In the sketch, my gaze was off to the side, like I was looking at someone. I was so surprised that I didn't remember walking into the front office and turning in the binder to the woman behind the desk.

When school ended that day, I tried to find Edward. I wanted to try talking to him one more time before the holidays. I saw him standing at the other end of the hallway, right by his locker and I rushed to gather my things, stuffing my backpack without regard for whether or not I had the right items. I knew how much time I had before I needed to catch the bus. I sprinted down the hall, trying to catch up with him before he left, but he was gone. He had somehow disappeared while I was throwing things in my bag. I ran toward the bus line, knowing that I would catch hell from my father if I missed it. As I ran, I looked for Edward, ducking in and out of crowds of kids, hoping to spy the bronze hair. I saw nothing, though, and spent my winter break contemplating the meaning behind the sketch.

* * *

When we returned from winter break three weeks later, Edward Cullen was not among the swarm of faces crowded in the hallway as we moved toward our early classes. Days went by and no Edward. I wondered aloud about his absence to Jasper one day at lunch. Jasper's face scrunched up in a funny way and he hesitated.

"Edward's had a family emergency. They relocated because of it. I don't know the details. I just know he probably won't be back any time soon."

_"You will marry Edward and you will die in flames."_

Somehow knowing Edward Cullen was no longer a presence in my life felt liberating.


End file.
